It's interesting the amount of money they were counting on getting from the program, though. I recall hearing that the London congestion charge was working too well and they weren't getting quite the amount of money from it that they were expecting. I wonder if they factored that in to their figures.

Damn the democrats! Claiming it would be a tax on the middle class. You have to be filthy rich to commute into the city via car in the first place. Those filthy, filthy democrats standing in the way of progress.

Besides, if there were no poor drivers, why would the Port Authority have proposed $1Billion to offset the costs of the new fees for poor drivers?

Regardless, my initial point is that with the current overtaxed public transportation system, shifting congestion from the roads to the subway isn't necessarily a win.

Don't get me wrong; I want to see a decrease in car traffic, and an increase in public transportation and biking. But even without the extra people on the subway, the trains are pretty darn crowded and in serious need of expansion.

^^^^ I only visit the city and Park SLope / Brookwyn so Im
not really qualified to offer an opinion other than a second hand one.

Do you like NYC commuting or San Diego better ?
How is public trans in San Diego..??

Tired of dum questions

Public trans in San Diego is pretty poor... although I do have to admit that if you are near a trolley line it can be quite handy. But generally everything is set up to go downtown... so if you need to go from the east to the north... you have to go downtown first and that can be pretty time consuming.

I used the buses way back when I was car free... and I used the trolley regularly up until about '95. I happened to live right off of a trolley line in Lemon Grove and I worked in El Cajon... so it worked out well for the days when for one reason or another I didn't bike. That line ultimately indeed goes downtown too.

Thanks Gene !
San Diego is way more spread out than NYc so for reasons that
arent worth boring with here Im wondering how bike/pub-trans
cities compare, spread out vs more compact.
I know Philly's is a pretty good system but soooooo expensive it
contributes to people driving because even with parking its cheaper in
some cases.

Thanks Gene !
San Diego is way more spread out than NYc so for reasons that
arent worth boring with here Im wondering how bike/pub-trans
cities compare, spread out vs more compact.
I know Philly's is a pretty good system but soooooo expensive it
contributes to people driving because even with parking its cheaper in
some cases.

It seems fundamentally wrong to me that 'public' transport would be more expensive to the user than private.

I understand that many people take the subway in NYC. I lived there for 4 years, and took the subway every day.

However, your statement that only rich people drive in the city is false.

No, I do not find it to be false at all. From all perspectives, baring extraordinary circumstances, it is cheaper, faster, and easier to take the area's public transit into the city core.

If I recall correctly the average hourly rate to park in the core is something like $12/hour its probably higher though. To entertain the idea of side of the street parking is comical and now you can calculate the dismal gas mileage Manhattan congestion causes, even the wear the rough and over used roads cost on your car. Not to mention that while monthly rates will have a marginal discount, as a return customer you better tip the guy.

Faster is a given when you are in the core, and as I mentioned earlier it is not possible for door to door travel, as after you fight the masses with your car you are going you have to then fight with the parking attendants and then walk to the building.

I mean with the vast expanse of the area's public transit system, which even without the congestion charge is still cheaper than driving to the core, I do not see how anyone but the rich, using their car as a luxury form of transit can do a daily commute into the core.

On a side note, during rush hour when I do drive into the city (frequent for work) it will take me an hour to go 14 blocks and due to the great amount of MTA buses on the avenues it is nearly impossible to make a turn off of those avenues. A congestion charge may not relieve traffic if what I say is true, it is prohibitively expensive for anyone but the rich already, but at least then it will plow money into the MTA.

I need to know more about those statistics you cited in order for them to be relevant, do they happen to be including cab drivers, they also seem to indicate a large income gap between public transit and auto drivers. The large amount of government employees commuting into the city also seems to indicate that, since their parking expenses are paid for by the government, a congestion charge, would reduce congestion.

Looking at your daily news link it also seems supportive of my argument, with more than half of the drivers in the core coming from outside of the city, should they not be responsible for the wear and tear they cause on the cities road? Especially when they live in the most public transit friendly region in the country. New Jersey, Upstate, Connecticut Long Island and even Pennsylvania are all heavily served during rush hour by commuter rail and remember even park and ride would be a faster avenue into the core than driving.

And as for the money going to the MTA, my close friend essentially ran MTA bus during the takeover, he use to work for New York Bus and runs the Cop Shot organization (Mild Brag, he does not have to worry about a long commute as a civilian he has a full fledge cop car and I have never gotten a ticket in my life). He was dreaming of the expansions he would be able to do, he would have had a large infusion of cash, bike racks on the front of buses?

I find the back-and-forth about whether or not this is a tax on the "middle class" and the related argument as to whether or not driving a private vehicle into the city is a luxury completely beyond the point. I think anyone who lives here can agree that New York City has a compelling interest in reducing the traffic congestion downtown, be it to reduce pollution, make the city safer for cyclists, encourage commerce, to reduce emergency response time, or any of a dozen other valid and compelling reasons. The fact that the MTA is completely unaccountable is a major (and perhaps fatal) flaw in the bill Bloomberg proposed, I'll surely grant opponents of this program that. But the argument that it's an unfair tax is absurd, because in practical terms it's not a tax at all. It's a disincentive program. It's designed to dissuade commuters from driving (or at least driving alone) as much as possible and to finance a sustainable alternative solution. In that regard it functions like the excise tax on cigarettes-- who exactly is taxed isn't the point. The point is to dissuade people from a destructive and unsustainable practice. You can argue that the State has no business doing that, but even if that's your take on it whether or not this proposal taxed rich people or the chimerical car-commuting working poor still has nothing to do with anything.

I find the back-and-forth about whether or not this is a tax on the "middle class" and the related argument as to whether or not driving a private vehicle into the city is a luxury completely beyond the point. I think anyone who lives here can agree that New York City has a compelling interest in reducing the traffic congestion downtown, be it to reduce pollution, make the city safer for cyclists, encourage commerce, to reduce emergency response time, or any of a dozen other valid and compelling reasons. The fact that the MTA is completely unaccountable is a major (and perhaps fatal) flaw in the bill Bloomberg proposed, I'll surely grant opponents of this program that. But the argument that it's an unfair tax is absurd, because in practical terms it's not a tax at all. It's a disincentive program. It's designed to dissuade commuters from driving (or at least driving alone) as much as possible and to finance a sustainable alternative solution. In that regard it functions like the excise tax on cigarettes-- who exactly is taxed isn't the point. The point is to dissuade people from a destructive and unsustainable practice. You can argue that the State has no business doing that, but even if that's your take on it whether or not this proposal taxed rich people or the chimerical car-commuting working poor still has nothing to do with anything.

Randya, That's good stuff but still no quantifiable data. It seems to me that Government should provide parking for X% of its employees where X is roughly the areas drive to work mode share, beyond that let people get to work the way most people get to work. Cutting back on the abuse of parking permits is not even getting close to the problem.

When I worked in NYC I would drive to work when I missed the train and did not feel like biking in (I had free parking) mostly because if you drove in and were 1-5 minutes late because of traffic that was a legitimate excuse, for other modes you got hell. There is a whole set of issues that go with free parking as you are expected to drive to work as that is (supposedly) the most expedient mode of travel and there is (in my experience) low tolerance for choosing another mode. Talking to friends who worked nearby for businesses without free parking and it was a totally different think.

If our own government won't do this, more than likely Al Quaeda or the Iraqi insurgency will do it for us.
We are sooner or later going to lose a war in the Mideast--and in the long run that will turn out to be a very, very good thing.

If our own government won't do this, more than likely Al Quaeda or the Iraqi insurgency will do it for us.
We are sooner or later going to lose a war in the Mideast--and in the long run that will turn out to be a very, very good thing.

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Just gonna ask if you are a scholar in Arab-Islamic ideology/history and remember exactly why we invaded Afghanistan?

Your blanket and absolute statements, not to mention the misspelling of Al-Qaeda, lead me to believe such is not the case.